Cheetahs out-muscle Highlanders

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The Cheetahs recorded their first Super Rugby win of the season with a comprehensive 36-19 win over the Highlanders at Rugby Park in Invercargill on Saturday night.

The Highlanders, coming off the bye, looked disjointed and not even the return of hooker Andrew Hore from suspension and locking legend Brad Thorn’s first game for the franchise could spark them.

They struggled for momentum against a superb Cheetahs forward pack, and possibly also missed the influence of All Blacks midfielder Ma’a Nonu, out with a late knee injury.

Skipper Adriaan Strauss said the win was invaluable, especially looking ahead to next week’s clash across the ditch against the Waratahs.

“We needed this win – we’ve got a couple of youngsters in the squad and we needed a bit of confidence,” he told Sky TV.

“I think the guys have that belief now.”

The Cheetahs ran in three first-half tries, a stark contrast to last week’s 45-3 defeat by the Chiefs when they couldn’t buy a five-pointer, and led 30-7 at the break.

Halfback and former Waratah Sarel Pretorius opened the scoring at 20 minutes, latching onto a well-timed inside flick from flanker Lappies Labuschagne as he burst down the left wing.

Stung into action, the Highlanders replied five minutes later when five-eighth Lima Sopoaga’s kick through found winger Kade Poki in perfect position to score.

From then on, however, Sopoaga’s night careered downhill as he gifted the Cheetahs 14 points with two horrible mistakes.

The first came on the half-hour mark as he tried to chip over the flat Cheetahs defensive line, only to see second five-eighth Robert Ebersohn charge the kick down and canter over unopposed for the try.

Pretorius then picked up his second five minutes from halftime, snaffling Sopoaga’s attempted flip to Hosea Gear with the Highlanders hot on attack and running 70m unopposed to touch down.

Five-eighth Johan Goosen’s boot was clinical in adding the extras, banging over five penalties and three conversions to keep the home team’s hopes of a fightback well under wraps.

Coach Jamie Joseph benched Sopoaga for All Blacks No.10 Colin Slade three minutes before halftime, and the Highlanders began the second spell promisingly as Poki crossed for his second try after four minutes.

But the Cheetahs defence regrouped and held strong, and not even Poki’s third try of the night, coming after he sliced through four tackles in the 73rd minute, could put the final result in doubt.

Purlease.
No one in NZ said it was the strongest conference. That came from outsiders.
On the basis of what we’ve seen, surprising South African width is going to blow this competition apart.
Although put the Chiefs at home against the Saffa teams and i’d give them a slight edge.

Plenty of people did say it, Katzilla. And with some evidence based on the last couple of seasons.

I’ve always said it’s a cyclical thing, but there’s no doubt the NZ conference has been stronger the last couple of seasons. And while jiggles & temba may be loving getting their sledging in, it’s too early to say whether it won’t be again.

For a start the argument was never as simple as “All our teams are better than all yours”, it was “We’ve got no easybeats and you do, which means your good teams get an unfair advantage”. And even last season it was clear that it applied more to the Aus conference with two, possibly three, easybeat teams while the SA conference only really had one (the Cheetahs performed well against overseas opposition last season).

Not sure why Kirwan made so many changes with a bye next weekend. The Chiefs picked up two points, which if they beat the Kings next weekend will give them a pretty decent haul from South Africa. Don’t worry, Jiggles.

It was a strange move from Kirwin considering the strength of the Bulls. And what was Luatua thinking running at the sideline on thier last possession. Despite this hump on the weekend I have no doubt come the end of the season it will be pretty clear the NZ is still the strongest conference.

Well,it may be that some people were saying we had the strongest conference.But that would have been based on the games up to this weekend.

Having seen the Australian teams in action,we’ll see how your teams go.Frankly,other than the Brumbies,the rest have been ordinary.Don’t be too surprised if the Australian teams suffer the same fate as ours.

I don’t even believe it’s that big of an issue, but the amount of people that don’t even seem to understand a pretty basic concept (more crap teams means more easy points for the good teams in weak conferences) but still think they’ve got something to say about it…well, it doesn’t surprise me (it’s the internet after all) but it does get a bit frustrating.

Just watched the Stormers v Chiefs game and was the match of the round so far! These saffa teams can play! If the Bulls also have a go this arvo we should get a great match of rugby.

One of the big differences i have seen between SA/NA teams and Oz teams, is that their forwards often try to offload when tackled. It just speeds the game. Last night, on a couple of occasions, I saw Robinson get tackled and not offloading despite having a team mate next to him. he clearly saw him but didnt want to take the risk to drop the ball. Ok they formed a ruck, got the ball etc, but the Brumbies were back in defence. I think Brumbies and Reds with Gill to some extent are trying to speed the game and link forwards/backs play. Tahs clearly not doing it yet.

Well done Cheetahs! Some fortuitous tries created from the in the face defence but they did have the Landers on the backfoot for most of the match with the level of intensity in the tackle. I hope this marks the point of their renaissance